Yes then the people.
I'll be honest and say my initial aspirations faultered probably out of personal initiative and focus.
But my Asus FX705-GM is still my only, and still going strong, despite some hiccups over the past three years.
I've reposted my initial OP, as I'd like to make it known there is atleast one owner dedicated to this Series/SKU.
I am genuinely saddened to see the loss of the original NBR forums, but also very, very happy to see they've been archived.
There simply wasn't another 'Laptop Series/SKU' community as well grown, knowledgable and experimental like it.
I can't pretend to have ever been apart of it, but I have dremmeled slots in the lower housing in the name of decreasing temps.
Trying to reverse engineer the upgrades from cerebral memory... I think one of the first actual major issues was Win 10 Pro drivers really, really faulting the OEM WiFi card way back in Q4 2019, so I upgraded to AX/6 the moment a Chinese chip came out.
Right now I'm running Win 10 LTSC 1809 17763.2628, and whilst I'll always have UI gripes, the OS performs magnificently, although I don't game.
Over the past 3 years, I've kept the BIOS up to date, and have allowed Win 10 LTSC to upgrade the firmwares/drivers as dictated by Update - as I like it.
The only driver I update out of my own responsibility is the dedicated Nvidia 1060m, using the Studio Ready driver, as this then gives me the option of ignoring Nvidia Experience or whatever their account nonsense is.
About a year ago, I upgraded the SSD to a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB, and the HDD to a WD WD20SPZX. Shocked to find that HDD technology had plateud at the 7mm(/9mm?) market, and that SSD has now overtaken in terms of price-density at this thickness.
This led to alot of BSoDs and I was like... "either an OS reinstall fixes it, or I'll 'spares-or-repairs' it" on eBay... I suspect that BIOS settings were the culprit, specifically having Intel RST control memory-drives instead of AHCI, but I don't want or dare to return to troubleshooting it.
Still on the todo list is a RAM upgrade to 32+32=64GB, although, I've not researched mobo compatabilities and market offerings, so... maybe this is simply peak.
I really don't dare upgrade laptops due to various supply chain faults and harware shortages. Looking back at my original post, I'm certain I bought the right laptop at the right time, although I know this is debatable.
Thanks to all involved in the NBR revival 🙂
njs-nbr404
[Edit]
1x32GB SODIMM DDR4 3200ghz = £110+... na m8.
